Seasoning Your Baking Sheets to Improve Browning

Summary by Krater

Helen Rennie explains why old and new baking sheets produce different browning results when roasting food, and tests half sheet pans from Nordic Ware, Vollrath, and Winco to determine how seasoning, oil application, and sheet condition affect baking.

From the video

Answers: Why do different baking sheets brown food differently and how do I prevent burning?

• baking sheet seasoning
• sheet pan browning differences
• aluminum baking sheets
• oven temperature for roasting
• heat conduction in baking pans
• preventing sticking on baking sheets
• half sheet pan comparison

What it concludes

• Years of grease baked onto old baking sheets make food brown much more quickly and deeply than on new unseasoned sheets.
• Seasoning new baking sheets with a thin layer of oil and baking them at high heat makes them brown food much better and reduces sticking.
• Baking sheets should be washed correctly using soap, avoiding steel wool and harsh chemicals, and should never be put in the dishwasher.
• All half sheet pans warp to some degree during high-heat baking, but center-popping up versus popping down changes how oil flows and where browning occurs.
• Sliding parchment paper with food directly onto the oven rack provides superior browning due to radiation transfer without the blocking effect of a baking sheet.